Ghostly Tales of Wisconsin

by Ryan Jacobson

  The second half of the year brought only a few un-explainable occurrences, and Katelyn grew accustomed to the ghostly presence. She later moved into a different hall, following her first year at Northland College, and while others may scoff at the rumored spirit that haunts Memorial Hall, Katelyn remains a firm believer.

  Gangster Ghost

  Robyn Klink didn’t like walking her younger brother to school. The area around Huntley Elementary in Appleton gave her the creeps. In fact, while she was there, she often felt as if she were being watched or followed. She had to wonder if her fourth-grade sibling picked up on the eerie sensation, as well, or if he were simply too young to care.

  Part of the problem was that the fourteen-year-old girl knew the stories about the neighborhood’s gangster ghost, and perhaps that contributed to her fears. “Marky,” as the specter was called, had worked for the mob in the late 1920s (while he was still alive), and he was rumored to be a distant relative of the old crime boss, Lucky Luciano.

  The girl could not remember how Marky had died or why he had chosen to haunt this particular neighborhood, but she knew a lot of people—including herself—who believed his spirit was still around.

  Her best friend, Becky, had told Robyn that she’d seen Marky from her bedroom window one night. “He was in the street,” Becky had said,” bragging about himself to some older kids walking by. I knew it was him because he was wearing these weird, old-fashioned clothes.”

  Robyn dropped off her brother at the school playground, where dozens of children ran and danced about. Then she began on her way to meet Becky, whose mother would drive them both to their middle school.

  Turning from Byrd Street onto Owaissa Street, every muscle in Robyn’s body tensed. On the sidewalk ahead of her, marching in her direction, was a teenaged boy who couldn’t have been more than three or four years older than she. Much to Robyn’s horror, the boy was wearing an outfit straight from the 1920s!

  She spun on her heels and began walking—more quickly—in the other direction, away from Becky’s house and away from the older teen.

  “Hey,” yelled the boy. “Hold it right there.”

  Robyn heard him start to run and glanced backward. He was nearly to her. Too late, she began to sprint as well, but she felt Marky grip her arm and squeeze tightly.

  He yanked her hard and spun her toward him. “What’s your problem?” the spirit demanded.

  Robyn’s jacket buttons snapped open, revealing her purple shirt underneath. The girl watched, bewildered, as Marky caught a glimpse of the shirt, his eyes widening in a panicked rage.

  The specter began to jump up and down, clutching his head like a madman. “No,” he screamed. “It’s purple! I hate purple!”

  Robyn didn’t understand why, but she was glad that he did.

  As if to dispel any doubt that he was the ghost of a long-deceased mobster, Marky vanished before her eyes.

  “Holy” Ghost

  It was the last place she wanted to be. Sister Augusta (as she came to be called) was having a hard enough time at her Episcopal girls’ school in Chicago. But to be sent here, to a retreat at Kemper Hall in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to be subjected to the stern rule of Mother Superior Margaret Clare, the nun who ran the place, this was more than Sister Augusta could bear.

  Physically and emotionally exhausted from months of hard work, she requested time off, a request that was reportedly granted. Nevertheless, distraught because she’d been forced to join an all-girl school, leaving the love of her life behind, Sister Augusta took matters into her own hands.

  On January 2, 1900, the young woman mysteriously disappeared from the mansion named after Wisconsin’s first Episcopal bishop, Jackson Kemper, leaving all of her belongings behind.

  Telegrams were sent to relatives in Chicago and Saint Louis, but no trace of Sister Augusta could be found. However, on January 5, a notice was released from Kemper Hall, informing newspapers that the young woman had been located in Springfield, Missouri.

  The statement turned out to be untrue.

  On the afternoon of January 8, a child named Bertha Smith and her younger brother were playing near the Lake Michigan beach off Seminary Street (now 65th Street). They spied a black-robed body floating in the water and hurried home to tell their mother. Not long thereafter, the police pulled the corpse of Sister Augusta from the lake, an apparent victim of suicide.

  Stairwell Specter

  The tired, old bakery worker wandered down the long corridor. She had heard the tragic, thirty-year-old saga of Sister Augusta, but it was the furthest thing from her mind. At least, it was until she opened the stairwell door.

  She stepped through the entrance, turning to walk up the stairs, when she gasped. “Holy Mary, Mother of God!”

  Floating above her—seemingly in slow motion—was the deceased young woman’s ghost.

  The bakery worker hurried into the kitchen. “Everyone! Everyone! Come quickly!”

  She rushed her fellow employees to the stairwell, but by the time they arrived, the specter had vanished.

  Gymnasium Ghost

  Being alone in old buildings didn’t usually give Betty the creeps. But as the 1985 Lakeside Players theater group actress stood in Kemper Hall’s gymnasium (now Simmons Auditorium), the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She felt goosebumps rising on her flesh.

  There’s something off about this place, thought Betty.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the figure of a young woman (Sister Augusta), and she spun toward the back wall.

  Thud, thud, thud, thud.

  Footsteps. They were rushing up the balcony steps.

  Betty curiously checked the staircase—and the entire gym—but no trace of anyone else was found.

  The Sobbing Spirit

  Lori Hartman jumped back with a start as the young nun frantically sped past her.

  “Whoa, she’s in a hurry,” Lori said to her husband, Jerry, watching as the nun disappeared around a distant corner. “What do you suppose that was about?”

  “Who knows?” her husband shrugged. Then he added, jokingly, “It’s not every day that you see a nun running for her life, though.”

  As they neared the spot where the nun had turned, they were struck to hear the soft sound of crying. Lori and Jerry glanced at each other, quizzically, as they continued onward toward the noise.

  “That poor, poor woman,” whispered Lori, trying to be discreet. “I wonder what’s wrong?”

  She stepped around the corner, expecting to find the nun huddled in some dark corner, weeping. However, the instant that Lori did so, the crying ceased. No one else was there. The nun, just like the heartbreaking sound of sobbing, was gone.

  A Frightful Feature

  The local news station had a great idea for their 1997 Halloween-related feature: They’d film a segment within the haunted old girls’ school, hoping to capture evidence of Sister Augusta’s ghost. Unfortunately, the crew who went inside was disappointed. Nothing extraordinary happened during their stay—or so they thought.

  The man who edited the tape found that every time a portrait of the campus’s founder, Charles Durkee, was filmed, the footage mysteriously became distorted with static. But as soon as the camera panned away, the screen returned to normal. The bizarre anomaly happened whenever the portrait was filmed, and its occurrence could never be explained.

  The Hanging Janitor

  Bobby Goneau burst out of the old, abandoned grade school at a sprint.

  He looks like he’s seen a ghost, thought his best friend, Joey Leonard. Maybe he has.

  The two teens had gathered outside the condemned school in Argonne with nearly a dozen of their friends and classmates. Rumor had it that the place was haunted, and each of them planned to go inside alone to find out. Bobby had volunteere
d to go first, and from the look on his face as he rejoined the others, he had definitely seen something.

  “What happened?” Joey asked his deathly pale friend.

  Bobby didn’t reply. He simply shook his head in disbelief.

  “You’re next,” one of the oldest boys in the group decided, gesturing toward Joey.

  The boy glanced once more at the fearful expression on Bobby’s face and then toward the teetering old school, which looked as if a strong wind might’ve toppled it. He took a deep breath, steeled his nerves and began to walk.

  As he entered the school’s second-floor storage area (which reminded him a little of his grandparents’ neglected garage), Joey thought of the rumor that had brought his friends and him here in the first place. Apparently, a janitor had committed suicide in the 1950s, hanging himself in the very room where Joey now stood.

  The teenager sensed himself beginning to panic, and the fact that the room was almost pitch black served only to heighten Joey’s fears. Nevertheless, he was going to do what he had come to do.

  With a flashlight in hand, Joey cautiously stepped through the filthy, spidery room and to the far wall. The dozens of names scrawled onto it reminded Joey that he was not the first to attempt this dare.

  “Here goes nothing,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a black permanent marker.

  His hands trembled slightly, as he meticulously drew each letter of his name amidst those of so many other brave teens who’d already met this challenge.

  Then, when he finished writing, he waited.

  A minute seemed like an eternity, and Joey didn’t plan on standing there any longer.

  Did I really expect something supernatural to happen? he asked himself, as he started toward the door, the quickness of his pace revealing his nervousness.

  Joey heard the ghost before he saw it. The blood-curdling moan stopped him in his tracks. It had come from almost directly above him.

  Slowly, with his hands shaking so badly that he almost couldn’t hold the flashlight, he raised the beam skyward.

  Above him, hanging from the rafters, was a terrifying vision of the janitor.

  Like his best friend before him, Joey erupted from the school at a run. He was the last of his group to enter the cursed room.

  Nowadays, the Old Argonne Grade School is no more. A few years after the building was condemned in the early 1990s—and less than a year following Joey’s frightful encounter—it was destroyed. All that remains is a gravel driveway that leads to an empty lot.

  Gein’s Ghosts

  “Care to guess how many people Ed Gein is known to have killed?” John Stratman asked, as his car approached the town of Plainfield.

  “Um, fifteen,” said his girlfriend, Sarah Petersen. Her answer sounded more like a question than a statement.

  John chuckled despite the fact that Sarah’s response didn’t surprise him. “Two,” he revealed.

  “Only two? Really? Then what’s the big deal? Why is he so famous?”

  Their travel mate, Dana Hanson, chimed in from the back seat. “He’s not telling you the whole story, Sarah. Gein confessed to killing two people, but police think he might have murdered a dozen or so more.”

  “Yeah,” John countered. “But the real reason he’s so well known is because of all the bizarre, gross things he did with his corpses—most of which were stolen from nearby graveyards.”

  “Do I even want to know?” Sarah asked reluctantly.

  “Probably not,” admitted John. “Let’s just say he had macabre taste—in food and decor—and leave it at that.”

  Sarah was more than happy to let the subject drop.

  Hardware Store Haunting

  “Here’s our first stop,” said John, as he pulled his car into the parking lot of Plainfield’s local hardware store. “It’s supposed to be haunted, but we’re not going to stick around long enough to find out. I just want to take a quick look inside.”

  “What’s Gein have to do with this place?” Sarah asked.

  John answered, but his voice suddenly sounded eerie and detached, as if he were reading from an encyclopedia. “On November 15, 1957, Ed Gein stopped here to purchase anti-freeze. A day later, the store’s 58-year-old owner, Bernice Worden, disappeared. Police discovered a trail of blood leading through the store and out the back door, so they suspected foul play. The evidence led them to Gein’s farm, where they found the woman’s mutilated body.” He paused and then added, “Do you want all the gory details?”

  “No, thank you,” replied Sarah.

  John smiled, amused by her squeamishness. “Anyway, since that time, a handful of employees and customers have seen Bernice’s spirit carrying order forms around the store. Some have also claimed to hear her apparition talking about anti-freeze.”

  “Well, all right, then,” said Dana. “Let’s go inside and have ourselves a look.”

  Cemetery Creepers

  True to his word, John kept the hardware store visit brief, which brought his morbidly curious companions and him to their second stop: Plainfield Cemetery.

  “Not only is Gein buried here,” John informed his fellow explorers, “he also used to rob graves from here.”

  “Gross,” said Sarah.

  “You can say that again,” added Dana.

  Sarah followed the others into the graveyard. “So what exactly are we supposed to see?” she asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” John admitted with a subtle shrug. “Reports are pretty vague: strange sounds, ghostlike shapes, feelings of uneasiness, things like that.”

  “Well, why don’t we go and take a look at Gein’s headstone?” suggested Dana.

  “We could, but we’re in the wrong place to do it,” John noted. “The headstone was stolen in June of 2000. And when the police recovered it, they decided not to put it back. They figured it’d get stolen again. So now it’s on display at the museum in Wautoma.”

  “Bummer,” Dana mumbled.

  “Well, at least we can see where Gein is buried,” John offered optimistically.

  Sarah scanned the cemetery and was surprised at the twinge of disappointment she felt. “You know, this would be a lot scarier if it were dark out,” she announced.

  “Don’t worry,” answered John. “By the time we get to our last stop, the sun will be down.”

  And with that, the three travelers ventured farther into Plainfield Cemetery.

  Farmhouse Fright

  “Our last stop on the Ed Gein ghost tour is the former site of his farmhouse,” said John. He slowed his car to a stop before a dark country lot. “This is it.”

  The land that surrounded them was thick with trees. There was a hint of a dirt path that led onto the property, but it was mostly overgrown by weeds and shrubs. In fact, the entire area looked abandoned and forgotten.

  “Here?” asked Dana. “It sure doesn’t look like much.”

  “An arsonist burned Gein’s house to the ground way back in 1958. All that’s left is this empty lot. It’s privately owned, so we can’t do much more than look from here.”

  “So was his house really haunted?” Sarah wondered aloud. “You’d think it’d have to be, with all of the terrible things he did.”

  “Believe it or not,” answered John, “Ed Gein himself started rumors that the farm harbored ghosts. He used to baby-sit local kids and told them as much.”

  “He used to baby-sit?” Sarah exclaimed. “There’s a scary thought.”

  “And speaking of scary,” offered Dana, “check that out.” She pointed into the distance, toward the spot where Gein’s home used to stand.

  John’s mouth dropped open. “That’s—that’s—that’s impossible,” he stammered. “The land is vacant. No one can be out there.”

  And yet, from within th
e trees, a spooky blue light shined toward the visitors, floating about ten feet off the ground in a ghostly fashion.

  “I think I’ve seen enough,” whined Sarah, her voice breaking. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” replied John, tearing his eyes away from the strange illumination. He pressed his foot against the accelerator, and the car sped away.

  No one dared to look back.

  Hell’s Playground

  There were three bodies: an adult female and two young children. Their blood-soaked clothes and frozen expressions of terror illustrated the severity of the attacks.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said one of the investigators, who had ventured to the southern Wisconsin town of Brodhead. “Murdered in a park, it’s a real tragedy.”

  He couldn’t have guessed that, from these vicious crimes, Hell’s Playground would be born, and the years that followed would bring many more horrors as a result of these unsolved crimes...

  “I thought you said we were alone,” Dora Langeworth whispered, as her boyfriend kissed her ear.

  “We are,” said Jacob Isley. “Don’t worry.”

  She pushed his lips away from her face and pointed toward a swing, which gently swayed back and forth. “Then why is that moving?”

  “It’s probably the wind,” Jacob declared, leaning toward her once more.

  She stepped backward. “What wind?”

  The boy ceased his advance and straightened his posture, as if awakening from a dream. He stared at the moving swing and seemed to notice for the first time that, indeed, there was no wind. After a long, uncomprehending moment, he finally noted, “It doesn’t make sense. The swing isn’t slowing down.”

  Jacob stalked toward the mysterious phenomenon, with Dora hurrying after him.

  Then they heard children’s laughter.

  The sound caused the couple to stop in their tracks. Given the strange circumstances and the darkness of this night, it was the scariest noise they could’ve imagined.